Message for 1900, by Mary Baker Eddy

My beloved brethren, methinks even I am touched
with the tome of your happy hearts,and can see
your glad faces, aglow with gratitude, chinked within the
storied walls of The Mother Church. If, indeed, we may
be absent from the body and present with the ever-present
Love filling all space, time, and immortality - then I am
with thee, heart answering to heart, and mine to thine in
the glow of divine reflection.
I am grateful to say that in the last year of the
nineteenth century this first church of our denomination,
chartered in 1879, is found crowned with unprecedented
prosperity; a membership of over sixteen thousand communicants
in unity, with rapidly increasing numbers, rich
spiritual attainments, and right convictions fast forming
themselves into conduct.
Christian Science already has a hearing and following
in the five grand divisions of the globe; in Australia, the
Philippine Islands, Hawaiian Islands; and in most of the
principal cities, such as Boston, New York, Philadelphia,
Washington, Baltimore, Charleston, S. C., Atlanta, New
Orleans, Chicago, St. Louis, Denver, Salt Lake City, San
Francisco, Montreal, London, Edinburgh, Dublin, Paris,
Berlin, Rome, Pekin. Judging from the number of the
readers of my books and those interested in them, over a'00 2
million of people are already interested in Christian
Science; and this interest increases. Churches of this
denomination are springing up in the above-named cities,
and, thanks to God, the people most interested in this
old-new theme of redeeming Love are among the best people
on earth and in heaven.
The song of Christian Science is, "Work - work -
work - watch and pray." The close observer reports
three types of human nature - the right thinker and
worker, the idler, and the intermediate.
The right thinker works; he gives little time to society
manners or matters, and benefits society by his example
and usefulness. He takes no time for amusement, ease,
frivolity; he earns his money and gives it wisely to the
world.
The wicked idler earns little and is stingy; he has
plenty of means, but he uses them evilly. Ask how he
gets his money, and his satanic majesty is supposed to
answer smilingly: "By cheating, lying, and crime; his
dupes are his capital; his stock in trade, the wages of sin;
your idlers are my busiest workers; they will leave a
lucrative business to work for me." Here we add: The
doom of such workers will come, and it will be more sudden,
severe, and lasting than the adversary can hope.
The intermediate worker works at times. He says:
"It is my duty to take some time for myself; however, I
believe in working when it is convenient." Well, all that
is good. But what of the fruits of your labors? And he
answers: "I am not so successful as I could wish, but I
work hard enough to be so."'00 3
Now, what saith Christian Science? "When a man is
right, his thoughts are right, active, and they are fruitful;
he loses self in love, and cannot hear himself, unless he
loses the chord. The right thinker and worker does his
best, and does the thinking for the ages. No hand that
feels not his help, no heart his comfort. He improves
moments; to him time is money, and he hoards this capital
to distribute gain."
If the right thinker and worker's servitude is duly valued,
he is not thereby worshipped. One's idol is by no means
his servant, but his master. And they who love a good